Thunderbolt is 12 times as fast as FireWire 800, over 20 times as fast as USB 2.0, and twice as fast as USB 3.0, which Apple seems in no hurry to adopt.

This is the second MacBook Pro generation with Thunderbolt, a 10 Gbps data connection that uses the same connection as Mini DisplayPort. The Late 2011 MacBook Pros ship with OS X 10.7 Lion, but because this is a relatively minor revision, they should be able to run Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard. The best news of all is that with faster CPUs, larger hard drives, and improved graphics, there’s no change in price. There had been some speculation that the next MacBook Pro revision would include the same Bluetooth 4.0 built into the iPhone 4S, but no such luck – we’re still living with Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR. The graphics processor (GPU) has been upgraded to Radeon HD 6770M with the same 1 GB of dedicated video memory as in the Early 2011 model. In addition to slightly faster CPUs, the Late 2011 model comes with 50% more spacious hard drives – 750 GB instead of 500 GB in the case of the 17″ machine. This was also the last 17″ MacBook Pro it was discontinued in June 2012. The 17″ model goes from 2.3 GHz to 2.4 GHz, a 9% improvement. The Late 2011 MacBook Pros represented a small step forward from the Early 2011 models introduced just 8 months earlier.

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